Saturday, March 10, 2007

I've given this post the title Errata, but Erratum is more accurate. "Errata" means a list of of corrections, and "erratum" means a single correction.

Okay, that's the second week in a row I've told you something about Latin, which is sort of presumptuous of me, since I don't really know anything about Latin. But just to remind you, last week, I told you about the proper pronunciation of the word "pubes."

As you may recall, I pointed out that Sarah Silverman mispronounced the word "pubes" on an episode of her TV show. Well, it turns out I was wrong about that. She actually mispronounced the word in her 2005 feature film, Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic.

I saw that movie when it came out, and I thought it was pretty funny, although a lot of movie critics gave it pretty bad reviews. What they objected to the most, as I recall, was Silverman's blatant racism. There may have been some blatant homophobia as well, but it was a while ago, so I don't remember. Everyone knew she was just kidding, of course -- it was all just part of her act -- but it didn't matter. Everyone knew she was being deliberately offensive in an attempt to skewer the pervasive racial stereotypes and show us some of our own prejudices, in the same way that Lenny Bruce did about fifty years earlier.

But with Lenny Bruce, it was pretty obvious that he didn't really believe the things he said, and with Sarah Silverman, it's not always so clear. Maybe when she shows us some of our prejudices, she's showing us some of her own as well.

Anyway, it's not important -- not to me, at least. What's important is that she mispronounced the word "pubes" in her movie, and not on her TV show. They've been showing the movie on one of the cable channels I get, and I happened to see that part of the movie again, so that's how I know.

I didn't watch the whole movie again, but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. I just didn't feel like watching the whole thing. But it was worth seeing. As a matter of fact, if you haven't seen it, and you happen to subscribe to whatever cable channel is currently showing it, you might want to watch it. Or if you don't get that cable channel, maybe the DVD is available by now and you can rent it somewhere.

The TV show, by the way, is starting to feel a little stale. In last week's post, I said I'd be surprised if it got picked up for a second season. This week, I'd be even more surprised. But I've been wrong before, and if I'm wrong again, then I will have made two mistakes about Sarah Silverman, and the title of this post should rightly be Errata.